In recent years, farmers are beginning to recognize the advantages of "ridge" farming. They will throw large amounts of soil up against the growing crop to form a large ridge while cultivating their crop during summer summer months. This ridge may be 8 or 9 inches high. The next planting season they will plant directly on top of these ridges leaving all of last years crop residue on top of the ground to prevent erosion. This planting on top of the ridge is possible because the residues fall down in the valley between the ridges, allowing the top of the ridges to dry out and warm up early in the spring or planting season. It is not necessary to do any tillage of the ridge before planting because frost in winter or just time and weathering will make the ridge mellow and just right for planting. To to this planting a regular ridge-till planter is used. It will cut off a thin portion of the top of the ridge and place seed in the firm moist warm soil encountered there, resulting in a good stand, early emergence, and fast growth. A complete ridge-till planter is expensive and the farmer hesitates to make this investment. If he has a late model conventional planter like a John Deere, International, White, Kinze, etc. he would rather keep it than trade it off. Our invention is an attachment designed to be bolted quickly on to a conventional planter to convert it to a ridge-till planter. This attachment is designed to cut off the top of the ridge in a controlled manner, exposing a firm, moist, warm seedbed about 10 or 12 inches wide, free of residue, in which a conventional planter can plant without encountering problems normally associated with residue.
Several companies make double "trash whippers", bolted solidly to the forward from of conventional planters to push residues aside for planting in hevy residue, but they have no means for controlling depth of cut and are unsatisfactory. Several other companies make "attachments" to cut off the top of the ridge, but they are bolted to the tool bar frame, or to a separate tool bar frame ahead of planter. They are all 24 inches tall or more, they are out in front or just behind the tool bar of the planter and all require planter modification to allow them to fit and operate normally. Our attachment will fasten behind the tool bar of planter, either to the planter unit forward frame or the parallel linkage of the planter unit. It is designed with a low profile, only 12 inches high to operate safely under the planter tool bar and no planter modification is necessary.